Raymond E. Vickery Named Wilson Center Global Fellow

WASHINGTON-The Honorable Raymond E. Vickery, Jr., noted author on US-India relations and former Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration, has been named a Global Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars for the 2015-2017 term.

In making the appointment, Dr. Robert S. Litwak, Vice President for Scholars and Academic Relations said, “as a Wilson Center Global Fellow, you are now part of our global network of preeminent thought leaders. These fellows help amplify the Center’s mission and programming lanes of excellence through their research, timely analysis, and other activities. This select group is an integral part of our intellectual community and are ambassadors for the Center in their home institutions, their countries, and beyond.”

Vickery’s appointment follows his tenure as a Woodrow Wilson Public Policy Scholar in 2008-2009. His project on strategic aspects of US-India economic engagement led to the publication of The Eagle and the Elephant in the US by Woodrow Wilson/Johns Hopkins University Presses and in India by Oxford University Press – India. This book examines case studies where economic engagement had been a driver in US-India strategic cooperation. It was based in large part on his experiences as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and as a consultant with what is now the Albright Stonebridge Group. Among the cases covered was the US-India civil nuclear agreement upon which Vickery worked 2005 – 2008, having advocated lifting of US nuclear sanctions against India from 1998 - 2001.

The Woodrow Wilson Center, Asia Program published last year his work India Energy: The Struggle for Power, which examines India’s need for sufficient energy to power a modern state and global leadership. In this book, Vickery advocates that the US cooperate in the Modi infrastructure initiative by working with the Indian government and private sector companies to facilitate the financing, design and construction of energy infrastructure. He argues that by reason of availability, security, and environmental impact increased reliance on solar, wind, and efficiency is the ultimate future of Indian energy.

Vickery is also the author of numerous articles that draw on a wide range of US-India experience as Assistant Secretary of Commerce in charge of industry sectors, where he helped organize Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown’s groundbreaking trip to India in 1995, and as a consultant 1997-2009 to the US-India Business Council. With the USIBC, he handled assignments ranging from Hollywood-Bollywood cooperation on intellectual property protection to chemicals and information technology outsourcing. In 2000, he was instrumental in organizing the business program for the seminal visit to India of President Bill Clinton. Vickery returned with President Clinton to Indian as a private citizen in 2001 in the aftermath of the Gujarat earthquakes. Vickery is often a commentator on Indian and international television, most recently during the visit of President Obama to India and Prime Minister Modi to China.

Vickery is currently a Senior Advisor to international consultants Albright Stonebridge Group, headed by former Secretary of State and Woodrow Wilson Public Policy Scholar Madeleine Albright, and is Of Counsel to Hogan Lovells, an international law firm with headquarters in Washington and London. Vickery is a magna cum laude graduate of Duke University and the Harvard Law School. He first came to India as a Fulbright Scholar between studies at Duke and Harvard. Vickery served three terms in the Virginia General Assembly and worked on Indian and Indian American issues in the Presidential campaigns of Vice President Al Gore, Senator John Kerry, and Senator Barack Obama.

Vickery's book, India Energy: The Struggle for Power, is available for download at this link.  Hard copies are available on request, please email asia@wilsoncenter.org.